In the age of e-learning With advancing technology, the process of teaching and learning is also undergoing radical change.

Technology has completely revolutionised classrooms. Whether it is submitting assignments and projects, or making classroom teaching more interactive, the applications are manifold. Instead of carrying heavy bags, students can now carry an enriched digital textbook which contains all the study material.

Several initiatives have been taken to enhance teaching and learning methodologies. One such initiative by Ram Gollamudi, Prasanna Boni and Ramesh Karra, founders of Edutor technologies, aims to take digital learning in India to the next level.

“Our focus has been on developing a robust set of technology to enable schools and colleges to go digital,” explains Ram. “We thought, instead of teachers doing a lot of paper-based assessments, is there an easier way for them to assess where the class stands? Can the experience of reading textbooks be made more enriching?”

Five to ten years back, companies like Educomp and Everonn introduced smart classrooms, where teachers could show interactive content through a TV or an interactive board. But the students were largely untouched by it and still had to carry heavy bags. This led the founders of Edutor to come up with the innovative idea of introducing tablets instead of heavy textbooks.

Going digital

“We work with top publishers such as McGraw Hill, Oxford and Cambridge, among others. The textbooks by these publishers are available on the tablets and are enriched. For example, wherever there’s a static picture on the page, it is converted into a video or an animation. So, the experience is much better than reading a passive textbook,” explains Ram. “If a student takes one hour to get a grasp of a topic from the textbook, he can do it in 15 minutes through the tablet,” he adds.

Not only students, but teachers can benefit from this as well. Usually, teachers test the level of understanding of students through worksheets. But correcting so many worksheets can be a tedious task.

This problem can be solved by using a tablet.

“What we have is an automated assessment solution where the teacher can ask a set of questions to the students with a single click. These are automatically corrected and the teacher can immediately know how many students understood the topic and how many didn’t. Based on this, she can decide whether to move on to the next topic or explain the same one again. She can also identify the few students who are struggling and carry out remediation for them separately,” says Ram.

Cloud services

There are several other methods that are being used by schools and colleges to integrate technology into the learning process. Edusync, a cloud-enabled service launched in 2014, is enhancing the learning and teaching experience of students and teachers through a mobile phone application.

The app provides a central platform to teachers to manage their classrooms digitally and makes it easier for students to access study materials.

“Edusync is a socially aware platform created to make education simpler. It is divided into four simple divisions — class schedules, assignments, library and chat. Edusync also allows parents to sign up to keep a better track of their wards' academic performance and track records,” says Kushal Chudiwala, CEO of Edusync.

Teachers can create multiple classrooms on Edusync’s platform, distribute and receive class assignments, make class schedules, put out announcements and have a personal talk with the students if needed. Students, on the other hand, can view their assignments, get access to all the study material, get quick solutions to their queries from their respective teachers and so on.

“Connecting students and teachers together and organising course materials on both sides has really helped them both. It has also enabled students to understand their subject better,” says Kushal.

Challenges

Traditionally, technology has been seen as a deterrent to studying. Several colleges prohibit the use of mobile phones and tablets in the campus and classrooms. Their apprehension is understandable. Often, students use their phones for texting classmates or friends, rather than paying attention to what is being taught. How can this problem be avoided?

“It is important to make the key stakeholders such as parents, teachers and principals understand that tech devices in classrooms are not a distraction, but a powerful tool. To address this issue, we have enabled the device to be locked so that students will not be able to access anything apart from their textbooks and reference material. This will ensure that they focus on their subjects and not on Angry Birds,” explains Ram.

It is also essential to train teachers to use the devices efficiently which would help them to adapt to the new technological changes. “Teachers will have to evolve from being the sage-on-the-stage to a mentor-on-the-site. Most teachers are able to adapt without much difficulty,” says Ram.

For students, the transformation has been easier. “They are inherently quite comfortable with technology. We advise them about what it takes to be a good digital citizen and teach them the best practices. Though the device would be locked, it is important for them to understand that it’s for their own safety,” says Ram.With technology progressing in leaps and bounds, the time doesn’t seem far when classrooms would get replaced by virtual classrooms.

“Some subjects and courses might fare well, but I don't know if it’s possible to replace normal classes. However, supplementing regular classrooms has met with positive results and we must push that boundary continually,” says Kushal.

Source | The Hindu | 21 July 2015

Today's librarians more than keepers of books

Michele Lind doesn’t fit the image of the librarian sitting behind her circulation desk muttering “Shhhh!” every few minutes.

In fact, she says she would be thrilled — not embarrassed — if her principal walked in while kids’ chatter filled the library.

“My philosophy on quiet has changed,” said the library media specialist, who works at Roosevelt and Lewis and Clark elementary schools in Mandan. “I don’t want it to be wild and crazy and out of control, but I want it to be a little noisy.”

So do a growing number of school library heads who no longer see their sole purpose as keepers of books. They increasingly provide activities to prompt kids' imaginations and collaborate with teachers to integrate technology into the classroom.

The shift from old-school librarian to present-day library media specialist has occurred gradually over the past two decades. Still, local library media specialists find themselves debunking myths about their jobs.

Lind, for one, can see why people might question sending her students on a geocaching expedition. With GPS devices in hand, they searched their schools last year for hidden treasure.

“We are teaching them how to use technology,” she said. “We are teaching them how to apply latitude and longitude. They learn those concepts, but they are so foreign to them.”

Makerspaces

In some ways, children’s weekly visits to the library mimic those of their parents and grandparents. In Mandan and Bismarck public schools, they still check out books and listen to a library media specialist or an assistant read aloud.

“When I started, we were the study hall,” said State Librarian Mary Soucie, who worked in school libraries in the 1990s. “That’s where kids went when they were being disciplined.”

Some students today also spend their recess in the library, Lind said.

The difference? They come because they love “makerspaces,” which are designated areas within a library for kids to create anything from robotics to bookmarks.

The spaces popped up in school libraries throughout the country over the past several years, including in Bismarck and Mandan.

Library media specialists provide the supplies, then let the kids do the rest. Lind split classes into teams last year and gave each 100 red Solo cups. Each group had to come up with a way to stack the cups to ensure the structure would stand.

“I don’t think kids have time to play anymore,” Lind said. “A lot of them are on devices and computers. They forget about playing and creating.”

Misti Werle started a popular makerspaces club last year at Solheim Elementary School in Bismarck. The library media specialist, who earlier this month became the districtwide library media systems innovator for Bismarck Public Schools, regularly oversaw 25 kids who packed her library for weekly meetings after school.

“I had to turn kids away,” she said.

Collaborating with teachers

Blogs, Twitter chats, conferences and school library journals keep library media specialists up to speed on the newest tools available to enhance teaching.

The challenge is finding teachers who want to collaborate, Werle said.

“Often times, they don’t know what you can do for them,” she said.

The way she describes it, library media specialists have to advertise.

Lind knows what that's like. She researches what teachers at her schools are doing so she can devise ways to support them.

One tool she wants to try is Glogster, which she describes as a computer posterboard that can embed pictures, video and text.

“We are still trying to get that up and going,” Lind said. “It takes persistence and one teacher to set the example.”

She found some success last year teaching students email. She showed all her schools' third-, fourth- and fifth-graders how to compose and send an email, requiring them to use proper capitalization and punctuation. Every student messaged her, and she responded to each one.

One of the Lewis and Clark teachers then integrated that lesson into her class. Instead of turning in a sheet of paper with answers to questions, that teacher asked her students to email their responses to the assignment.

Split time

Lind sees the email lesson as a start to more collaboration. Part of the problem, she said, is that she’s split between two schools. She’s not always present when it’s convenient for a teacher to work with her.

That’s the case for library media specialists in Bismarck, too, which has 19 specialists split between 24 schools. Many work at two Bismarck schools, though there are several assigned to three, Werle said.

Kirsten Baesler was the librarian at five elementary schools when she started working for Bismarck Public Schools in 1989. Before she was elected state superintendent in 2012, she served dual roles at Saxvik Elementary School: assistant principal and library media specialist.

“My time as a library media specialist was the best training ground to know my responsibilities as a state superintendent,” she said. “It was absolutely essential for one to know all the standards on all the subjects for all the grade levels.”

Navigating resources

In doing so, Baesler could work better to assist teachers with classroom projects. As a young librarian, she frequently scoured the shelves and borrowed books from neighboring libraries to supply kids with an adequate amount of research materials.

“My big challenge was to make sure there were enough resources available to our students,” she said.

That changed by the time she was elected state superintendent. She taught kids to sort through the plethora of information available online, discerning reliable sources such as .gov sites from Wikipedia articles.

“There are people who say libraries aren’t relevant anymore,” said Werle, explaining that kids’ first instinct is often to turn to Google.

Students will probably find higher-quality sources in databases, which can quickly sort through articles with the search of a keyword, she said.

The State Library at the Capitol grounds in Bismarck pays more than $270,000 each year for databases, including Encyclopedia Britannica, and makes them available to school districts, Soucie said.

Werle said Bismarck Public Schools alone could not afford all those subscriptions.

“Libraries have and always will be about making connections,” Soucie said. “We’re just using different tools to do that now.”

Source | http://bismarcktribune.com/

 

ETHICS OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING

A glimpse at world history and its contributions to mankind will reveal that man has also been constantly evolving mentally in search of a better way of life. While one section of explorers worked hard to step up the "standard of living" by using science and technology, there were others who tried hard to understand the "truth of life."

Yet, none of these personalities who broke new ground for mankind felt the need to consolidate the information on a universal platform so that mankind can progress further from the point of what they already knew about.

As a result, we have been constantly engaged in the oft repeated activity of "re-inventing the wheel". A glance through all the recorded material on various subjects which is available at the click of a button is proof enough to show that many subjects have been discussed and analysed threadbare and have reached refined heights long long ago, even as we are fumbling with the hems of the subject only now.

For instance, the heliocentric theory or the presence of atomic energy was known to ancient Indians thousands of years ago but the world consolidated the same as scientific knowledge only about 400 years ago. This is but just one example among thousands of such discoveries that were made by ancient civilisations across the globe.

Today, the scenario has changed. We live in a technologically advanced world, and all the information we need on just about any subject under the sun is available in both "hard" and "soft" forms for a price. But apparently, there are very few genuine takers who utilise this information for the benefit of mankind or self improvement.

A survey among the student community shows that while the younger children prefer to be spoon-fed by their teachers and their guardians, older students use the internet specifically for playing games, chatting with online friends and occasionally looking up for information about their role models in the sports and cine field in that order. Students pursuing higher education use information relevant to their subject only when they are pressurised to look up for some information on their own.

Many a project work, seminar and thesis submitted by students happen to be plagiarised from a source which they do not even bother to mention or acknowledge much to the consternation of the authors, who sometimes accidentally stumble upon their work verbatim in another person's name.

Plagiarised research
According to them, "If you steal from one author, it is plagiarism; if you steal from many, then it is research." It is indeed a sorry state of affairs. Experienced faculty from reputed institutions can vouch for the fact about how many times the earnest research work of an entirely unique nature has been snitched in the most unethical manner by people in authority.

While some original works do get compensated monetarily, many a creative work like a poem or a script or a formula are changed minimally and used unscrupulously. It is shameful and disheartening to note that even the teaching community cannot be spared of this accusation.

Novices in the field sometimes help themselves to the notes and the ideas of their seniors without acknowledgement or even a pang of conscience. Perhaps it was because of this reason artists, artistes, scholars and experts in different subjects held on to the keys of their knowledge to their bosoms in the past, are doing so in the present and will do so in future.

The scenario will not change as long as people reject their moral scruples and refuse to follow code of ethics. Till such time the portals of knowledge at the experimental and research level will close their doors for the fear of being robbed of their ideas which cannot be compensated with anything that is tangible. This will result in waste of time as scholars will feel queasy about sharing their opinions and findings for the fear of losing them and end up going in circles for a longer time.

The time has come when information has to be processed into knowledge through experience so that the end product can be used for the betterment of mankind.
To do so, we have no choice but to stick to the old fashioned way of holding on to our integrity and honour and acknowledging the hard work and the earnest efforts of people who may have arrived at some results in their respective fields.

Teaching and learning, which are nothing but the two faces of sharing, will become
meaningful and joyful exercises when the originator (devil?) is given its due.

REFLINK: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/487826/ethics-knowledge-sharing.html

It was difficult to cope with academic workload: Students

In an unprecedented action at any IIT, the institute at Roorkee expelled 73 students whose performance was not up to the mark after their first-year of the B Tech programme.These students scored less than 5 CGPA (cumulative grade point average) in their exams and were expelled late on Wednesday .

At the time of admission, the parents of these studen ts had signed a declaration stating that their poor performance could result in their removal from the institute: this is unlike any other previous instance at an IIT.

Students have been expelled from IITs but taken back, except in one instance each in IIT-Kharagpur and IITKanpur.

On Thursday , a meet was held to consider the mercy plea of the students. The decision was taken at the meet. It was attended by over 160 senior officials, including professors, heads of departments and the director. A decision was then taken to expel the students. A former director of IIT, Kharagpur, recounted that in 2006, around 15-20 first year students were expelled on account of poor performance. This decision was taken by a panel that evaluated undergraduate students. The director, however, eventually overturned the decision to expel the students and re-admitted them.

Sources told TOI that IIT Roorkee's move to expel stud Roorkee's move to expel students occurred after the second-semester exams ended in May . Many students who fared badly were called for a meeting with college authorities and told to pull up their socks.

During counselling sessions, many students admitted that they were finding it difficult to cope up with the academic work load. Institute officials said a few students claimed they had not given much attention to studies as they were “enjoying the firstyear of college“. In mid-June, poor performers were sent a notice of expulsion by the institute. They were given time to file what the institute termed a “mercy appeal“.

Many affected students refused to speak with TOI, saying they were still in shock.

A few said it was an “unjustified decision“ and that they were never warned that scoring less than 5 CGPA would result in expulsion. “I have scored a little over 4.5 CGPA, but even then, I have been asked to leave. It is not fair. What will I do now? My whole academic year has gone waste,“ said one student Student body representatives said the institute had acted in haste and should reconsider the decision.

“Many of them come from vernacular-medium back grounds and it is difficult for them to comprehend certain subjects. They should have been given time to adjust...,“ said Rajveer Choudhary , trea surer of Students' Affair Council of IIT Roorkee.

Meanwhile, the institute's registrar, Prashant Garg when contacted, said the deci sion was justified. “The IITs are premium institutes and the rules regarding under performance were clearly no tified to students at the time o admission. These 73 students could not attain the required credits and had CGPAs lower than 5, which qualifies for ex pulsion,“ Garg said.

“The decision to expe them was taken after consid ering their mercy appeal which was rejected by the apex academic body yester day . We acknowledge that the number of expelled is huge but we will ensure pre ventive measures are taken and that there is no need to expel even a single student on the grounds of poor academic performance next year,“ Garg said. As their parents have already signed an agree ment saying the students could be expelled for poor per formance, these students are now left with no recourse said a source. 

Source | Times of India | 10 July 2015

The paper tiger roars :Print and Digital

Notebooks are in vogue. And no, we are not talking about the digital computing device here.

Did someone say notebooks, the ones that are crafted from paper, would die a slow, but sure death? That their fate would be similar to audio tapes, camera-film rolls and other such categories that had suffered a similar fate in the past? As even schools began to use digital devices to educate children, many had said that it was only a matter of time that the sword of Damocles hanging over the category fell.

In India, well before tablets and smartphones began to rule, the general expectation was that the stationery market, and specifically notebooks, did not offer much to write home about. Traditionally the stationery market in the country was an unorganised one. From small retailers to independent sellers, many depended on Chinese imports. But if recent market reports are to be believed, paper has found a new status in the digital age and market experts believe stationery is a segment of promise. What has changed and how did notebooks make themselves relevant in the digital age?

Writing on the wall

The growth of notebooks over the last few years, from a humble Rs. 6 for a book to a premium product that can cost as much as Rs. 1,000, demonstrates that along with challenges there are also several opportunities.

In the notebook category, brands such as Navneet, Bluebird and ITC have had a significant say in how the market has moved over the last decade. Last year Japanese stationery major Shachihata Inc announced a large investment in India.

A few years before that, the Kokuyo Group entered this market after purchasing majority shares in Camlin, a well known stationery manufacturer in India.

ITC’s Classmate notebooks, which target the educational segment, have had several sales highs over the years. The notebooks business of the tobacco-to-hotels conglomerate is now ten years old. One of ITC’s advantages was that its notebooks business could rely on its existing value chains of production – the company has a large paper business division-- to “create a new engine for growth”.

Chand Das, Chief Executive, Education and Stationery Products, ITC says, “The branded component of the market in India when we kicked off was about 6-7 per cent. Today it’s about 35 per cent.” ITC claims to have a 20 per cent share of the organised market.

“Notebooks, especially of the Classmate kind, are a seasonal category. That back-to-school period of May and June are good for us. In about six months, we manage about 75 per cent of our total sales across the country, with the rest of the year catering for top-up demand,” explains ITC’s Chand Das.

Taking notes online

Even online players like Flipkart and Amazon have a significant interest in the category. Flipkart, for instance, claims to stock 10,000 SKUs of notebooks.

An Amazon India spokesperson says that notebooks and diaries account for substantial sales in the stationery category. Online purchasing behaviour in notebooks is more prevalent in premium notebooks like BILT and Paperkraft than in the mass range of notebooks which account for approximately 50 per cent of the market. For Flipkart too, diaries and notebooks are “key traffic drivers which contribute to about 15 per cent of the total stationary segment.” Ankit Nagori, Chief Business Officer, Flipkart, says, “Fuelled by a growing economy, a burgeoning middle-class, and higher literacy levels, the notebook market in India is expanding at a fast rate. With capital being invested in the book and education industries, this sector is going to be the ground for experimentation and innovation in the coming years.”

Das of ITC says, “Our premium products are stocked first with our e-commerce partners. Those strong partnerships help our overall business in notebooks.”

“Industry growth is driven by increasing literacy and enhanced scale of initiatives in the education sector. But there’s also the shift from inexpensive products to quality products.” Flipkart’s Nagori says, “Among the technology-savvy generation, a small percentage of our users have shifted to digital mediums like laptops, smartphones and tablets. Despite this, a majority of customers prefer a notebook. We have close to 10,000 products under this category. With customised diaries seeing takers across age groups too, we believe that product innovation in this category can further add to the ‘collectible’ value of notebooks.”

ITC too has over 200 premium products. While the average price of a Classmate is Rs. 30, its premium notebooks cost a lot more.

Write is might

Even for the brick-and-mortar bookstores that take the burden of heavy rentals in urban centres across India, notebooks make serious business sense. Competition among bookstore brands means the clear demand for notebooks and related stationery products has to be met.

“Stationery is the second-best selling category across all our retail stores. It makes up about 30 per cent of our total revenue. “About 10 per cent of our revenue is generated from notebooks alone. We sell notebooks from as low asRs. 6 and it can go up to Rs. 1,000 or more. The organised notebook market in India is about Rs. 5,000 crore, which is about 20 per cent of the entire stationery business in our country,” says Darshit Shah, Vice President – Product, Sapna Book House.

Store 67 is a premium stationery brand from Sapna Book House. Shah says, “We have seen an increase of 15-20 per cent year on year in our notebook business. In India from 2009 till 2012 stationery business has grown at over 30 per year every year.

In the coming months to a couple of years, there’s likely to be added interest from foreign brands for a share of the notebook and stationery pie. Already, Relay, a book press and traveller convenience brand, is making inroads in India. Airport lounges across India may prove to be an added point of traction for premium notebook brands. Going by the scale of demand and the range of offerings here, the notebook is nowhere near extinction.

To allay fears that notebooks are not good for the environment or that they play havoc with corporate sustainability missions, ITC has spotted an opportunity. It sees the notebooks business as an opportunity to showcase sustainability across the chain of production. The company’s R & D reportedly helps it consume fewer trees and water in its production of Classmate.

A simplistic interpretation means there may be enough resources for a longer period of time and therefore notebooks and paper-based businesses will endure for years to come.

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Paper has found a new status in the digital age and stationery is a segment of promise.

Source | Business Line | 10 July 2015

Oxford to soon launch 3 digital platform programmes - for school children in India

Oxford University Press is launching this year three major programmes, mostly for school children in India, by using the digital platform.

The Press' Indian division is 103 years old and has a unique plan to get a stronger foothold in the Indian market.

"We have three main programmes on the digital platform

·         Oxford Educate Premium,

·         Oxford Achievers

·         My Map

 

Which we are launching soon," says Ranjan Kaul, Managing Director of OUP India.

Oxford Educate Premium is a digital aid that integrates an e-book with interactive tools and learning materials. It incorporates a variety of resources: interactive animations, videos, poem and prose animations and audios for different courses, instructional slide shows, lesson plans, answer keys, additional worksheets, image references and much more.

Oxford Achievers is a web-based assessment programme that will help in measuring the impact of a teaching-and-learning process.

"This is a diagnostic tool. It was successfully used in Hong Kong and now customised in India. We have pilot tested it in about 10 schools and have got positive feedback," Kaul told PTI in an interview.

"My Map is being used in the UK and we are customising the product to the Indian curriculum. It is also an online product and uses simple animation," he says.

With methods of learning changing and children becoming more visual learners, he says the teaching methods have to undergo changes so that they become adaptable to the learning. Kaul sees digitisation as an opportunity and not as a challenge.

"We are content developers. Print is a vehicle to deliver that content. Digital is an equally good vehicle and even a better vehicle," he says.

Two of OUP's popular products - Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Oxford School Atlas - have completed 100 years.

"Advanced Learner's Dictionary is still popular in India. It is a very useful learning tool. We have been changing the format and design of this dictionary so as to help users, like helping people in writing," Kaul says.

The Atlas had its 34th edition printed recently.

 

"We have our own cartography team now. Our 34th edition incorporates the new state of Telangana following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh," Kaul says.

 

Source | Business Standard | 13 July 2015

Govt Launches eBasta, A Digital Library Of Downloadable School Books.

The Digital India initiative is spreading it’s wings in every area possible. Over last few months there have been many initiatives launched under this scheme, but most of them have been geared towards transparent Governance and other Government related services.

Now, under Digital India initiative, the Government has launched a platform that extends may help Indian school students tremendously. Aptly called eBasta (Basta means school bag in Hindi), this new platform was unveiled today by the Government that will provide digital and eBook versions of school books and other study material to school students through-out India.

The platform, eBasta, is merely not a library of books, but a collaborative platform where school Book publishers, School teachers, students and even various etailers can participate.

According to the eBasta website, “it is a framework to make school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. The main idea is to bring various publishers (free as well as commercial) and schools together on one platform. In addition to the portal, a back-end framework to facilitate the organization and easy management of such resources has also been made, along with the web based applications that can be installed on tablets for navigating the framework.”

What Can School / Teachers Do with eBasta?

The school or teachers can log on to the portal and search for eBooks and other digital content. They can then logically organize it by creating eBasta for their own students. It’s exactly like you create a bag full of schools books that are related to each standard or course.

School teachers can choose and bundle content according to their teaching methods. Access to variety of resources – text, simulation, animations, audio books, videos, etc – to choose from.

What Can Students Do with eBasta?

eBasta provides an Android Application download, which students can install on their mobile phones or tablets. The students can then go to eBasta and download the eBasta that has been created by their school or teachers. This way, the students will have all the content as required by their teachers.

Because the content is in digital format, it can be stored on any device and shared or copied making the entire content very accessible and portable for students to use.

What Can Publishers Do with eBasta?

For school book publishers, eBasta becomes a marketplace where they can read out to thousands of schools across the country. They can register on the portal and then list, sell and distribute all their content in digital format.

Apart from listing and showcasing their content, the publishers can get direct feedback from teachers and students regarding the digital content they offer. The platform also supports DRM, so they do not have to worry about piracy of books too.

Here is how all stakeholders are involved on eBasta

Source | http://www.ebasta.in/

Social media, if used rightly, can create opportunities for a global-playing field

The concept of learning and acquiring degrees invariably throws up images of classrooms, blackboards, buildings, books, etc. Physical classrooms and books still exist, but it’s becoming tough to point out if technology is a learning aid or rightly the new and a more effective way to learn. The reach and ease of using technology is changing the way learners want to learn—virtual classes, forum for peer learning and even learning on-the-go through smartphones.

One of the biggest contributions of technology to this field is its ability to make high-quality education accessible to anyone with internet connectivity. The internet has facilitated education to such a great extent that distance learning or online degrees are accessible for students across multiple disciplines—right from art history to clinical psychology—enabling students to learn at their pace and plan schedules based on what works for each.

Most successful online programmes offer students a complete package of video lessons, assignments and assessments that take away the stress of rigid schedules and offer the freedom of flexible learning and the convenience of going through one module multiple times with the video lessons playback. Most of these programmes also offer forums for posting questions, exchanging notes and learning through peers, making for effective learning and engagement. Combine this with live doubt-clearing sessions wherein the faculty is available online to answer students’ queries and you have everything that a classroom offers with unimaginable freedom and possibilities. With smartphones available at a pocket-friendly price, education is literally in your pocket.

Towrads this end, global campuses have opened opportunities for students who check out universities through virtual tours, video-conferencing with faculty or admissions directors interacting with senior students through LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc. They can even follow their favourite professors or alumni on Twitter.

With the changing pace of technology, it seems that shifting gears from computer screens to mobile screens is here to stay. Customised education by educational institutions and ready adaptability by students is changing the paradigm of learning. From recording attendance to assisting with course work, today there is an app for everything. The impact isn’t limited to educational apps. Crowdsourcing is another interesting way of finding solutions to academic queries.

It is important to note that, by moving education out of a classroom and into the virtual world, the one-size-fits-all phenomenon is being replaced by individualised outcomes. The teacher moves from the role of a lecturer to that of a guide. Learning becomes a shared responsibility and students have a say about the way they wish to learn.

Social media becomes the mainstay throughout a student’s and a professional’s life. How does one search for jobs? Let’s start with networking sites such as Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook. Job portals such as Monster, Naukri and Shine give access to employment opportunities beyond one’s physical reach. There are multiple options; for example web albums, blogs to video resumes that add a three-dimensional effect and reach a global audience.

Let us not forget that the internet is a relatively new development. In 15 years, we’ve progressed from emails to social media platforms. The potential is tremendous. It can open newer vistas and create more opportunities for a global-playing field.

The author is senior vice-president, Marketing, TalentSprint

Source | Financial Express | 6 July 2015